Trouble logging in?If you can't remember your password or are having trouble logging in, you will have to reset your password. If you have trouble resetting your password (for example, if you lost access to the original email address), please do not start posting with a new account, as this is against the forum rules. If you create a temporary account, please contact us right away via Forum Support, and send us any information you can about your original account, such as the account name and any email address that may have been associated with it.

Newer better formats deserve to be adopted and advocates will always push to help those formats along (rightfully so). However, practical usage normally dictates the popular format. For instance, as a web developer I still favor 800px width for web page designs, not because it looks great on my 1360x768 monitor, but because 800x600 is still the dominant desktop resolution (I don't support IE6 however ). I'm not trying to make a case for Xvid, but I am surprised that the majority of DLs seem to go for the higher quality format. I'm curious what people's viewing habits are. Do most of you watch these strictly on your primary PC? Are you able to find ways to watch this format on multiple HD TVs in your home?

Now, if you're complaining that stupid fansubbers are using far more bitrate than they need to--that's not at all unreasonable, because they do; most SD anime needs at most ~50MB per episode.

Lol, I'm (mostly) not complaining. Just wondering what is the deciding factor when the general anime watching public chooses one format over another.

I guess quality alone is not so odd. I was an early adopter of Blu-ray thanks to the PS3, which I was willing to pay $600 for, and there is a PS3 hooked up to the basement TV and a Blu-ray player hooked up to the living room TV. I did not question the need to upgrade hardware to enjoy HD video on disc, and yet apparently that is what's holding me back from enjoying downloaded anime in HD. Maybe everyone just has really nice computers.

The desktop analogy isn't really valid because screens will continue to get bigger, but content will always have to be concentrated on smaller screen area out of informational concerns. People will use the extra screen space for other applications.

I'm curious what people's viewing habits are. Do most of you watch these strictly on your primary PC? Are you able to find ways to watch this format on multiple HD TVs in your home?

On the TV which is hooked up to the PC. This is pretty trivial to set up these days with HDMI or VGA+audio. Or get a proper laptop (read: not a netbook) and move that around instead of dealing with long cables.

h264 got better video compression and at the same time lower file size output than xvid. and tthere that other features in h264 that are not present in the old xvid. if you have read about h264, you should at least get the idea why its becoming prominent choice when they encode video because of those features.

regard with the hardwares i play mkv/h264 with. i use my pc and a xbmc' htpc. its nice that xbmc is handling those mkvs with advance ass subtitle quiet well.

Originally Posted by Dark Shikari
Now, if you're complaining that stupid fansubbers are using far more bitrate than they need to--that's not at all unreasonable, because they do; most SD anime needs at most ~50MB per episode.

Well-I for one won't be watching your shitty looking 50 meg per 23-24 minute episodes. For me bit rate is king-the higher the better. Most of the encodes I do average at least 3 mb bits per second. My average size on a standard anime episode is at least 800 megs and often 1 gig.

Well-I for one won't be watching your shitty looking 50 meg per 23-24 minute episodes. For me bit rate is king-the higher the better. Most of the encodes I do average at least 3 mb bits per second. My average size on a standard anime episode is at least 800 megs and often 1 gig.

Oh shit, your poor eyes.

What does your signature say?

Quote:

Anime is ok-but you've gotta have time to live, too.

So, is anime important or is it less important than other things? I don't really understand.
You are spending your precious time you could use to live, on arguing how important it is your anime looks totally awesome supersharp crisp digital quality.

Originally Posted by Dark Shikari
Now, if you're complaining that stupid fansubbers are using far more bitrate than they need to--that's not at all unreasonable, because they do; most SD anime needs at most ~50MB per episode.

Well-I for one won't be watching your shitty looking 50 meg per 23-24 minute episodes. For me bit rate is king-the higher the better. Most of the encodes I do average at least 3 mb bits per second. My average size on a standard anime episode is at least 800 megs and often 1 gig.

try encoding togainu no chi or night head genesis at SD resolution sometime and see how big a crf18 encode turns out

__________________

| ffmpegsource
17:43:13 <~deculture> Also, TheFluff, you are so fucking slowpoke.jpg that people think we dropped the DVD's.
17:43:16 <~deculture> nice job, fag!

01:04:41 < Plorkyeran> it was annoying to typeset so it should be annoying to read

Originally Posted by Dark Shikari
Now, if you're complaining that stupid fansubbers are using far more bitrate than they need to--that's not at all unreasonable, because they do; most SD anime needs at most ~50MB per episode.

did Dark Shikari said 50MB in terms of bitrate or filesize? but i think he meant filesize and ye i like anime in 400p at 50mb - 100mb, i know some sites who re-encode fansubs to that size

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheFluff

try encoding togainu no chi or night head genesis at SD resolution sometime and see how big a crf18 encode turns out

he clearly meant 3mbps bitrate lol, so he is not speaking in terms of CRF where bitrate varies according to video complexity and resolution size, seriously lots of people are still clueless about CRF

Long time no see everyone. It's encouraging to see so many old faces still active in the scene. Congratulations on many years of service.

Some time in 2006, I pretty much left the world of fansubbing to return to my roots as a gamer. I sort of drifted around from game to game as any other gamer, but then SSF2T got a re-release in 2008 and I got into it in a big way, attending tournaments etc. Well long story short, the scene for it started to fade out with the release of SFIV, and I eventually got back into anime and started following currently airing series.

Some things have changed in that time, and some haven't. I'm pleased to see that video quality is better in general, and that 720p is now the defacto standard (much to my frustration when I can only find DVD rips). On the other hand, I'm surprised to see people still releasing 480p and ASP versions, and for lack of a better word, enraged to see people still putting H.264 and AAC in AVI. I am most pleased to see many more original series compared to cookie cutter ecchi and harem that was rampant a few years back. The overall production quality appears to have risen too.

What happened guys? I thought we educated the noobs and run out the trolls years ago?

Despite my pushing the merits of MP4 and lolstandards, I'm glad to see MKV and softsubs as the dominant force. Even though I rarely turn them off, it's somewhat reassuring to know that the option is there, and more to the point that it hasn't altered the content of the video itself.

But there's one thing that bugs me. Something I want to get off my chest. Perhaps it's because I've done very little HD encoding that I don't understand some of the problems faced (remember, you are talking to an ex-encoder who's knowledge only spans until 2006 or so).

What's going on with filesizes these days? Now before you think, "hurr u mad", that's not the case. I have 50mbps down and 2 or 3TB HDD to spare. x264 has undergone some 1300 revisions since I was active, so I know the speed and compression are far better than they were back then. At such times, 720p would average 200-250MB if memory serves correctly. That's 5 years ago. The average size these days is probably 300-400MB. What's changed?

I appreciate that over time, people will have thought, "You know, crf18 doesn't cut it anymore, let's try crf17, or crf16" etc, but given the amount of work that has gone into x264, I'd have thought that the compression gains would have somewhat offset the filesize gains from using a more favourable crf. TS sources have become more widely available, but the quality of that source, I expect has stayed much the same (standards, hardware encoders etc, maybe quarkboy can shed some light on this since he's on the inside now - congrats on that).

One thing I noticed is that the crf I'm used to seem to have changed. Could it be that people still use the same crf values but the adjustments in x264 are producing larger files for a given crf?

Or is it that new breed of encoders not know how to get the most out of x264? Are they too idle to spend time encoding and decide to go with weaker settings in order to release before others?

Or are they using weak settings to artificially bloat the file to lure leechers into downloading their bigger files assuming they are better quality?

Yes it takes me two or three minutes to download a fansub and it really shouldn't bother me as much as it does, just the encoder in me rages every time I see a file that was encoded with anything less than optimal settings.

I'll leave you with this little gem (I realise that this is not representative of the average encode, but this made me chuckle and rage at the same time).

What seems really stupid dto me is taking a dvd source and encoding it at 5.1 with 16 reference frames. At most you need 4 ref frames. I did a 1 gig encode of an old vhs feature that was 55 minutes in length at 4.1 with 4 ref frames with the ac3 audio from the vhs to dvd transfer that I did myself. The originial transfer was 4 gigs at about 9 megs per second. It came out excellent.

What seems really stupid dto me is taking a dvd source and encoding it at 5.1 with 16 reference frames. At most you need 4 ref frames. I did a 1 gig encode of an old vhs feature that was 55 minutes in length at 4.1 with 4 ref frames with the ac3 audio from the vhs to dvd transfer that I did myself. The originial transfer was 4 gigs at about 9 megs per second. It came out excellent.

Eh, anime in particular can still benefit from a far higher number of reference frames. There are too many factors involved to say a certain setting is good just because an encode done with it looks good.